"If you feel so about it I'm glad he's gone back to Lucinda," said Sylvia. "She didn't have many steady boarders, and it did sort of look against her, poor thing, with all the mean talk there's been." "I guess there wasn't quite so much smoke without a little fire," said Mrs. Jim Jones, and her small face looked fairly evil. Then Sylvia was aroused. "Now, Mrs. Jones, you know better," said she. "You know as well as you want to that Lucinda Hart was no more guilty than you and I were. We both went to school with her." Mrs. Jim Jones backed down a little. There was something about Sylvia Whitman when she was aroused that a woman of Mrs. Jones's type could not face with impunity. "Well, I don't pretend to know," said she, with angry sullenness. "You pretended to know just now. If folks don't know, it seems to me the best thing they can do is to hold their tongues, anyhow." "I am holding my tongue, ain't I? What has got into you, Sylvia Whitman?" "No, you didn't hold your tongue when you said that about there not being so much smoke without some fire." "Well, there always is fire when there's smoke, ain't there?" "No, there ain't always, not on the earth. Sometimes there's smoke that folks' wicked imaginations bring up out of the other place. I do believe that." "Why, Sylvia Whitman, how you do talk! You're almost swearing." "Have it swearing if you want to," said Sylvia. "I know I'm glad that Albion Bennet has gone back to Lucinda's. Everybody knows how mortal scared he is of his own shadow, and if he's got grit enough to go back there it's enough to about satisfy folks that there wasn't anything in the story." "Well, it's 'good riddance, bad rubbish,' as far as I'm concerned," said Mrs. Jim Jones. There had been on her face when she first entered an expression of peculiar malignity. Sylvia knew it of old. She had realized that Mrs. Jones had something sweet for her own tongue, but bitter for her, in store, and that she was withholding it as long as possible, in order to prolong the delight of anticipation. "You've got two boarders, ain't you?" inquired Mrs. Jim Jones. "I've got one boarder," replied Sylvia, with dignity, "and we keep him because he can't bear to go anywhere else in East Westland, and because we like his company." "I thought Abrahama White's niece--" "She ain't no boarder. She makes her home here. If you think we'd take a cent of money from poor Abrahama's own niece, you're mistaken." "I didn't know. She takes after her grandmother White, don't she? She was mortal homely." Then Sylvia fairly turned pale with resentment. "She doesn't look any more like old Mrs. White than your cat does," said she. "Rose is a beauty; everybody says so. She's the prettiest girl that ever set foot in this town." "Everybody to their taste," replied Mrs. Jim Jones, in the village formula of contempt. "I heard Mr. Allen, your boarder, was going to marry her," she added. "He ain't."